1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for controlling progress of a video game by displaying multiple characters including a player character on an image display screen of an image display apparatus, and by controlling an action of the characters displayed on the image display screen in response to operation(s) by a player.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, various kinds of so-called role playing games (RPG; that is, a game in which a player plays a role of a character in a world of the game, and accomplishes a predetermined object while enjoying a process that the character grows through various experiences) have been provided.
In a RPG, generally, a player character acting in response to operations by the player wins a battle against an enemy character thwarting accomplishment of a predetermined object in the RPG, by which various benefits such as an experiential value are supplied to the player character. The battle against the enemy character has been an additional event to thwart the accomplishment of the predetermined object in the RPG. For this reason, a battle mode in which the player character battles the enemy character on a battle field has been provided in addition to a movement mode in which the player character is moved on a movement field, and the movement field and the battle field have been distinguished (separated) completely.
More specifically, for example, when predetermined battle mode shifting conditions are met while the player character is moved on the movement field, the movement field is shifted to the battle field. Namely, the scene that is displayed on the image screen (that is, scene) is shifted from the movement field to the battle field, and the player character and the enemy character(s) are displayed on the battle field in a state that they stand face to face. After the scene is shifted to the battle field, the scene is not returned to the movement field until the battle is terminated, and therefore, the player character cannot be moved on the movement field.
In this case, multiple friend characters including the player character and multiple enemy characters may be displayed on the battle field. When many characters are displayed on the battle field, it is difficult for the player to accurately grasp a state of each of the many characters displayed on the battle field. For this reason, the player may mistakenly operate, and the player character will not carry out an action intended by the player (for example, attack, recovery, supplemental defense, supplemental attack or the like), by which a problem that this lowers interest of the player may occur (that is, such mistaken operations may cause the player to lose interest in the game).
Heretofore, in order to make the player easily grasp the state of each of the characters displayed on the battle field, there is a technique in which a character (candidate character) to be a candidate of an action target of the player character and an action content of the player character against the candidate character (for example, any one of attack, recovery, supplemental defense and supplemental attack, or any one of an attack content, a recovery content, a supplemental defense content and a supplemental attack content) are received. In this technique, a display state in the vicinity of the candidate character is changed between the case where the received candidate character is an enemy character and the case where it is a character other than an enemy character (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-10547).
Further, heretofore, in order to allow a player to identify the characters displayed on the image display screen more easily and quickly, there is another technique in which a size of a circular shaped cursor displayed on the image display screen is being reduced so as to specify a character, the degree of zoom up to the character specified by the cursor is increased, and the display state of the cursor is changed in response to progress of an image processing state with respect to the character (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-69274).
In the conventional techniques described above, the battle field and the movement field are provided separately. For this reason, in the case where the battle mode shifting conditions are met while the player character is moved on the movement field, the scene is shifted from the movement field to the battle field in each case. Therefore, there is a problem that realism (realistic sensation) may be lost in the video game.
Further, in the case where the battle mode shifting conditions are met while the player character is moved on the movement field, the player has to wait until the period of time required to switch the fields (for example, the period of time obtained by adding the period of time for switching the scenes and the period of time until an initial event is carried out in the battle mode) elapse, and therefore, there is a problem that the video game cannot proceed smoothly.
On the other hand, in particular, the RPG requires, during a battle, that selection of an enemy character as an attack target and an attack content be received, and that an action of the received attack content be carried out against the received enemy character. Thus, the movement field and the battle field cannot be unified simply. Namely, it is difficult to distinguishably display whether a character arbitrarily appearing during movement is a character to be an attack target or not, which kind of character the character that the player character battles is, which kind of character the character that the player character does not battle is, and the like in a movable field in the RPG.
In this regard, although there is a video game called as an action RPG, in which a player character battles an enemy character in real time by providing an action performance to a RPG as well as an action video game, the RPG is different from such an action RPG. Namely, since a battle is carried out by means of a turn system in which a player character side and enemy characters attack another character, for example, alternately, and/or a battle system called as an active time battle in which the attack order of each character is determined by time management, the movement field and the battle field cannot be easily unified.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-10547, the display state in a vicinity of a candidate character is displayed so as to be changed between a case where the received candidate character is an enemy character and a case where it is another character other than enemy characters. The patent application, however, does not investigate whether an enemy character is displayed on the movable field so as to be distinguishable.
In Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-69274, a character is identified by a cursor and a degree of zoom up of the character. Thus, the character is distinguished by the display state of the cursor. The patent application, however, does not investigate whether an enemy character is displayed on the movable field so as to be distinguishable.